Your suffering is not your life. In Christ, oh, there is more! Remember these things that are true, and think upon such things. You will be sorrowful and yet always rejoicing as you fix our hope completely on the grace to brought to us when Jesus is revealed.

Suffering has a way of shrinking your view of your entire life down to your pain. It’s like when you have a headache, everything you do is tainted and affected by the throbbing your feel in your forehead.

Suffering has a way of causing spiritual amnesia. We forget that there is more true about us than just the suffering. Paul encouraged the church in Philippi to think about “whatever is true.”

So what is true of us, always, no matter what we face?

We Have Better than We Deserve

The New Testament authors regularly tell us that God has shown us great mercy. In Ephesians 2, Paul reminds us that we were dead in sin underneath God’s wrath but that God responded to our rebellion with great mercy, making us alive with Christ, and setting us on a path to know for endless ages the immeasurable riches of being treated kindly by the omnipotent God. Think about that! The God who can literally do anything He wishes has determined to take those who deserve His displeasure and cause their hearts to know the joy of His kindness for all eternity.

Our Hope is Invincible

Peter says in 1 Peter 1 that, in God’s great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a hope that is alive. This hope cannot be put to death. Why? Because it is grounded in Christ’s powerful resurrection from the dead. The life of our hope is tied to the life of Jesus – it cannot die while He lives.

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